Review: Shedding A Skin, Soho Theatre - witty, fun and moving
27/06/2021
Myah (Amanda Wilkin) is adrift. She goes from one dead-end job to another, trying to fit in until one day she gets called on to be the 'diversity quota' in her company's photos.
She snaps, the restraints are off, and this departure is both dramatic and funny - think less eloquent and powerful speech, more scrawling expletives on the office wall.
On a roll, she walks out from her unsupportive boyfriend and finds herself homeless and jobless. She realises too late that it wasn't a good idea to tell her boyfriend he could do what he wants with all her stuff.
Answering an ad on the Tesco notice board, she finds herself living with an elderly Jamaica lady called Mildred on the 15th floor of a tower block with a broken lift.
This time she's going to try harder to make things work. She's going to get her shit together. No, she is.
Shedding A Skin, also written by Wilkin, won the Verity Bargate Award for new writing last year, and I can see why.
While it's a play about feeling disconnected, feeling like you've not quite got traction with your life and trying desperately not to mess up, it's in equal measures a joyous and funny play.
Myah struggles with who she is and what she wants but slowly starts to find direction and connection, often through small acts of kindness.
Like the set, which starts small and confined and peels back piece by piece to reveal new space, so Myah's world starts to expand. Barriers are (literally) ripped down.
Wilkin's often self-deprecating and humourous performance maintains a poignancy.
The script is brilliantly observed and, while laced with wit, doesn't shy away from poking serious issues such as casual racism and tick box diversity in the workplace. Or how lonely modern life can be and the importance of community.
I felt quite emotional at the end and given that Amanda Wilkin ended up getting a standing ovation and giving not one, but two curtain calls, I wasn't alone.
I'm giving it my first ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ of post lockdown theatre.
Shedding A Skin is at the Soho Theatre until 17 July and is sold out, but there will be a live stream on 15 July, and you can find details here.
Other stuff you can see now which I've reviewed:
J'Ouvert, Harold Pinter Theatre